We all know we have a housing crisis and everyone at this conference wants to help via new policies, programs, and developments. But sometimes the best policies don't always produce the best results. And sometimes they produce unintended consequences that will last for generations. The hope of this discussion would be to encourage all housing policy and planning professionals to also view new policies through the lens of real estate finance before enacting them. Policy professionals should always ask how a given policy could impact the real or perceived financial feasibility and capital market acceptance of different housing typologies. They should also always include real estate lenders, investors, and developers in the discussions of potential new housing policies from the beginning to help ensure the policy creates the results the city wants. Ideally, the panel would be a group of for-profit developer, affordable housing lenders/investor, and housing policy professionals discussing their thoughts on various policies have had unintended consequences and how to avoid them in the future.
